


Wilhelm's Tower

by Starla-Nell (Princess_Nell)



Series: The Bournshire Boys [5]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: An Offer Cullen Can't Refuse, Don't go in there, Fluff, You went in there, Young Cullen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-27
Updated: 2016-05-27
Packaged: 2018-07-10 14:25:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6988921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princess_Nell/pseuds/Starla-Nell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cullen and Ori are playing Templars. What better place than a Mage's Tower? (In Ori's mind, just about anywhere.) </p><p>May solve the mystery of how Cullen survives so much trouble in-game.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wilhelm's Tower

**Author's Note:**

> Please read Chasing Pigeons and Templars Roll Out to meet Ori and his dad ahead of time.
> 
> Long Live Spot would also give more context, though it contains a canon-typical undead ... cat. Some people are freaked out by that, so I thought I'd warn you.

A few weeks later, young Cullen could be found walking in the square with Ori. There were gaggles of kids in the area. In a farming community, kids nearly outnumber adults. Whenever they could, everyone came to town to find others their own age, socialize, and entertain each other. Cullen had all but abandoned his usual crowd to hang out with Ori whenever he was around. After the incident with Owain, Cullen had become curious about templars and how they handle magic. He didn’t seem satisfied with the actual account of the capture from Ori’s dad: Owain had surrendered without a struggle after talking with the Templars. After the incident, Sister Lewella, preaching patience, had explained the misunderstanding at Chant, and Cullen told Ori that his dad had probably stopped the town from lynching the mage.

Now, Cullen stopped suddenly in the middle of their “patrols” and stared at the two full-scale statues holding shields at one corner of the square. One was to either side of the entrance to Wilhelm’s Tower.

The mage’s Tower.

“I wonder how far you could see from the top?” Cullen said. Ori paused to take a good look. At five stories, it was the tallest thing in Honnleath. At the top of the hill, it was also the highest. The Tower’s larger ground floor was built into the rounded hill behind the building. This floor had 2 flat sides next to each other, but the rest of the tower was rounded. Ori remembered that the Tower was part of an old castle’s defenses. There used to be four towers and huge walls around the town. Now the walls were crumbling and only one tower and the gate remained.

“We should go in there.”

“What?” responded Ori, shaken out of his thoughts. “Why?”

Cullen narrowed his eyes dramatically at the Tower, and Ori examined it further. The two flattened sides were perpendicular to each other, and had once led to passageways within walls that were no longer standing. The archways that would have led to open air were bricked up – well, stoned up. Arrow slits had been set high into one of the newer walls, and a door built into the other. Subsequent generations had added a lean-to as a foyer to prevent too much cold air from getting into the Tower. A modern convenience for an ancient building. The various improvements through the ages were also reflected in the roofs: the one skirting the transition from the larger ground floor to the first floor was red, while the others were brown, the exact shade determined by how recently they’d been patched. “There’s illegal magic in there!” Cullen took off for the door.

Ori called after him, “Isn’t that an argument for not going in?”

Cullen spun around and rolled his eyes at Ori. Ori felt slightly more akin to a toad. “But that’s why we need to go in! We’re the Templars, right?”

“Cullen, we’re just playing templars.” Yet, he tagged along as Cullen approached the Tower and tried the door. He was relieved when it didn’t open.

“Then play the game. Where else are we going to get a better place to be templars?” He gestured grandly.

“My dad says I should never go in there. There could be magic defenses.”

A breeze picked up. Ori watched as Cullen smelled the oncoming winter in the wind; the sky was bright and clear. He could almost see the older boy’s thoughts. Only the most cold-tolerant crops were left in the fields, cover crops were planted; the farmers were simply waiting. A farmer’s son had few opportunities like this. Cullen looked at a pile of crates against the other flat wall, stacked almost to the arrow slits.

“Look, I don’t want to mess with anything.” This could not be happening: Cullen clambered up the crates to the arrow slits. “If anything glows, I’ll get out. I’m not going to do anything stupid.” Cullen disappeared into the narrow gap. After some minor racket inside, the door opened from the inside for Ori.

Ori tried one more tack: “Doesn’t this belong to Matthias and his mom?”

“They don’t care about it. Matthias is always busy trying to make up with his girl, and his mother would rather we forgot about the whole tower. But what if …” Cullen was definitely making this up as he went. “What if there’s a time bomb in there?”

“A time bomb?” Ori tried to hide his interest with a tone that showed how ridiculous the idea was.

“Yeah. A magical time bomb, set to go off in – two hours. And only we can stop it.”

“I don’t know…” Ori shifted from foot to foot between the shielded statues.

Cullen suddenly looked serious. “Ori, you’re not going to tell your dad on me, are you?”

Ori panicked. Was their friendship at risk so early? “No! I would never!”

“You’re super-curious about this place, too, right? I’ve seen you looking at it.”

Was it that obvious? “Of course I am. All the kids want to know what’s in here.”

“Just think of the stories we’ll tell.”

“Let’s not, and say we did.” But he could see them, Cullen telling the tales and Ori backing him up, the two of them sharing the spotlight …

“Then someone else would go in and prove us wrong.” Why was Ori suddenly picturing Cullen with lion fangs? He shook his head as Cullen continued, “No, we need evidence.” Cullen offered a hand to Ori, fangs tucked neatly away. “Come on!”  
Ori, seeing few options, took Cullen’s hand.

\---

Their footsteps echoed on the dimly-lit wooden floors. They had climbed up the ladders to the first and second floors, making up tales about anything they saw on the way.

  
The ground floor had been grand, with large chairs and heads of strange animals on the walls. Ori had named the ones he knew, and Cullen had made up names for the ones he didn’t. A device dominated the center of the room: several circles, one inside the other, turning various directions to make the whole thing look like a sphere. They had invented blood-mage dignitaries their imaginary blood mage lord (not Wilhelm, obviously) met with so they could all plot how to lure victims for their blood rituals.

The first floor’s ceilings were nearly as high, but there was only one stool, plus shelves and shelves of bottles and jars. It had been incredibly dim, but Ori had dug out a candle he was taking to the Chantry and lit it with a tindertwig. “All of these jars and bottles are connected to triggers at this central table. If we bump into any in the dark, they will magically explode.” Cullen had looked at Ori questioningly, who’d shrugged. “Standard mage defenses.” He’d looked satisfied, and they had climbed the ladder to the second floor without touching anything.

Here there were more mysterious devices, smaller than the centerpiece on the ground floor. Any shape you could imagine was somewhere in the room: a pyramid with elven runes carved into each side, a moon-shaped pendant for a giant, an enormous cluster of crystals, even one object that kept changing from a cylinder to a puddle, and back again. Cullen searched one side of the room, while Ori watched this transformation several times.

Cullen’s voice broke the edgy silence. “What’s that whispering sound?”

“I don’t hear anything. Cullen.” He looked round at him, and realized his candle wasn’t the only light source in the room anymore. He put it down on the sturdy table in the center of the room.

Cullen pointed to a cube on a shelf just above their heads. “Look at that! It’s beautiful!”

“It’s just a metal box.” He skirted the table for a better look. The metal had a bit a greenish cast. What was he missing?

“Look at the designs in it.” Cullen didn’t take his eyes off the plain box; he stepped closer, pointing.

“I don’t see anything.” Ori tried to figure out how to discourage Cullen from getting any closer to the box. In the days that followed, he came up with twenty ways, but right now none presented themselves.

He was getting excited about this trinket. “Here, I’ll show you.” Cullen picked up the box! Immediately, the room was filled with a high, ringing sound (or was that just his ears?) and Cullen collapsed.

“No!” Ori caught him, but he could only slow him so he didn’t hit his head as he fell. Ori was careful not to touch the box.

\---

Cullen woke up on the floor of … somewhere. He was fine after all. Well, his head was still fuzzy. A familiar voice questioned him. “Little boy, why do you watch us so?” Suddenly, he remembered where he was; he was watching practice behind the Chantry.

“You’re templars, right? You know who you are and what you’re willing to die for.”

“And who are we?” He’d been right; this was Ser Keelin.

“You help others.” Was he watching practices, or remembering watching practices? How was Ser Keelin both practicing and talking to him? Cullen’s head swam as he focused on answering the question. “You protect people from magic, like what you saved me from just now. Or was that last week? I’d be in the Fade, or worse, if you hadn’t saved me. What exactly happened, anyway?” Cullen blinked and shook his head. “I’m still not seeing clearly.”

“So, Cullen, it sounds like you would like to join with us.”

He looked up suddenly at Ser Keelin. “Oh, yes!” He remembered his promise to Mia. “But I’m just – a farm boy. I’m not that talented. Can I really?”

“You can build ability, and you may be more talented than you know. It will take a lot of work, years and years. Are you willing to take on these duties?”

“Yes, if I can become a templar, I’ll do it!”

“Then close your eyes now. We’ll start practice when you awaken.”

\---

“Cullen, wake up! Cullen, can you hear me?” Ser Keelin’s voice was speaking to him again, but different, somehow.

Cullen blinked in the darkness. There was only one candle here. “I can hear you. When do we start?” Keelin’s face was right above his.

“Oh, thank the Maker you’re all right.”

“You said we could start templar practice now. Wait, was it you? Sorry, I’m a little fuzzy still. Where’s the other templar? He looked like you.”

“There’s no-one,” said Keelin, then as Cullen’s brow creased, “perhaps he left to get help.”

“That must be it. He said we would start practice when we awaken.”

“When you wake up?”

“That’s what I said. When I wake up, I can practice. Are you sure it wasn’t you?” Cullen felt his thoughts fracture. Then one took over and gave him focus: it was his duty; he must practice now. “I should start practice.”

“I guess that’s a good idea. I’ll show you the beginning exercises. I need to talk to Sister Lewella.”

\---

Ser Keelin set Cullen up with a wooden sword. He coached him through the first sword move new recruits are taught, and told Cullen to repeat it fifty times. To his surprise, Cullen nodded and began with a focus he’d never seen in a ten-year-old child. Keeping his grim face from Cullen’s attention, he left the practice grounds to talk with Sister Lewella and Ser Gethin.

“Who else knows about this?”

“Just the three of us, and my son knows the events but not their significance.”

“Good. Keep it that way, for now. We have no way of knowing how the boy’s experience will affect him. There may be nothing to fear.”

Ser Gethin was always practical. “These are not the only two children in town. How can we prevent this from happening again?”

“The artifact in question seems to be inactive now, but I agree; there’s too much in that Tower to leave unattended. Can we dispose of it all?” Both knights turned to Sister Lewella.

Sister Lewella considered. “For now, we will have Jeb move the crates they climbed, and the door locked of course. I will have a talk with Matthias. He is coming of age soon enough, and though his mother is dead-set against it, I may be able to convince him to learn how to control the Tower’s artifacts and defenses to prevent a recurrence.”

Ser Keelin smiled grimly. “Who knows? Maybe some good will come of this. That place would be more defensible than the Chantry if only we knew it wouldn’t kill us.”

Ser Gethin grinned and chucked him on the shoulder. “That’s more like you. Always looking on the bright side. Why would Honnleath ever be attacked?” His laughter followed him down the hall. “I’ll talk to the merchant.” He waved as he stepped through the door.

Sister Lewella’s fond smile covered both templars. “Such good boys,” she sighed.


End file.
